Faith is My Sword'
by soBeautifullyObsessed
Summary: Stephen Strange is called upon to assist when a looming threat materializes in the English countryside. He searches ancient texts of Kamar-Taj for any clue to explain the danger & how to defeat it. He finds in The Ancient One's collection a book penned by Merlin himself; Merlin of Camelot, & King Arthur's court. Will it contain answers he needs, or plunge him into deeper mysteries?
1. Chapter 1

**"Faith is my sword. Truth my shield. Knowledge my armor."**

_motto of Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts  
_

Even as a child, Stephen Strange had stood apart from his contemporaries, reading an average of two grade levels beyond his age, and earning straight A's on every report card as though it were the easiest thing in the world. But that hadn't made a world of difference to his father, who always stressed that the most important lessons his sons and daughter needed to learn were in the school of hard knocks, and in the reality of their life as farmer's children, rather than in any classroom. He made them responsible from their earliest ages for chores around the farm, and as they grew from primary school to middle school and then to high school, he insisted that their chores always came _before_ homework. "You're on my time, when you get off that school bus," he reminded them often enough, "You can do your homework on your own time, after finishing your tasks and having supper with the family."

Therefore, it wouldn't have surprised a soul that Stephen was often eager to make an escape from such drudgery into a world of imagination, fueled by books that told of exotic lives and circumstances playing out as distantly as could be from his family's Nebraska farm. On the last day of school before Thanksgiving break, the gangly, precocious sixth-grader checked out a slew of books from the school library, planning to read his way through the lot of them in what free time he might have, hoping to complete them all by Sunday evening. But he only managed to get through one—and that one spoke to him on such an elemental level, that his vision of what his future could hold was drastically changed for the better.

_The Sword in the Stone_, by T.H. White.

Of course, he'd seen the Disney film on videotape several times—it was one of his sister Donna's favorite cartoons, so he was vaguely familiar with the story of King Arthur's coming of age and into his throne. This particular copy of the book had cover art that intrigued him; a boy in silhouette drawing the mysterious sword in a nighttime forest, with dazzling sparks of color denoting the unexpected magic that flowed from the boy's hands. This was nothing like the childish looking line drawings and primary colors that marked the Disney version—there was adventure there, discovered by a simple boy whose life had seemed to be leading him to a simple, unremarkable future as a farmer on his adopted father's estate. Wart was a boy just like Stephen—always being told what to do, always being told what his place in life was certain to be—and yet he had broken free most unexpectedly, and a destiny undreamed of was catapulting him forward towards excitement and tremendous purpose. It was exactly the sort of thing an 11-year-old boy with a vast imagination and keen intellect would dream of for himself.

Stephen read that book four times over during that Thanksgiving weekend, and never regretted for a moment all those other books that sat unopened in his backpack, to be returned unread to school on Monday morning. He felt he had found an echo of himself in young Wart and he wished with all his might for a Merlin to find him, and teach him, and lead him to a destiny beyond the ordinary one his father had planned for him. For the first time in his young life, Stephen felt encouraged enough to hope that he could make of his future what _he_ wanted**.**

Inevitably, over the course of college and medical school, through the many years of his residency and then his ascendency to the upper echelon of his field of medicine, Stephen had forgotten that striking childhood revelation-and even that it had been his impetus to take the first steps towards building the life he envisioned for himself. He was already a Sanctum Master with vast experience in innumerable aspects of the Mystic Arts before that vital memory resurfaced-stunning him when he realized he had forgotten it altogether, while pleasing him with the discovery that there might be some degree of truth behind that grand, mythical tale.

And it all started with an urgent request for help from the Master of the London Sanctum**…**

(_to be continued_)


	2. Chapter 2

As was so often the case, Wong was already waiting for him when he stepped back through the access way from the London Sanctum-reminding Stephen once again of his fellow Master's impeccable sense of timing. Skipping the preliminaries as usual, Wong simply asked outright, "So-how did it go?"

Stymied by the puzzled presented to him in London, Strange could only shake his head. "I'm afraid I wasn't much help to Master Banerjee-at least for the time being."

Wong fell in step beside Stephen as he strode to the grand staircase, "Meaning you have no idea what the creature is or where it came from?"

"Well, from the few eyewitness accounts they've managed to gather-and from the evidence left in its wake-I'd say it's definitely not native to Earth."

"That doesn't rule much out, Stephen."

Strange grunted, while taking the stairs two at a time, making a beeline for the main library of the New York Sanctum. "Of that I am keenly aware, Wong-but thanks for reminding me anyway…" Though he had only logged a few years' service as a Master of the Mystic Arts, Stephen's experience was far deeper and much farther reaching than any of his peers-for his judicious use of the Eye of Agamotto had allowed him decades and more for study, training, and exploration across even the most distant reaches of this reality. Making him the go-to source when any in the Mystic Fraternity faced a threat unknown in the annals of their collective experience.

Alisha Banerjee, Master of the London Sanctum, had contacted him with the urgent request to assist in discovering the cause of a rash of animal mutilations that had followed a two-week long, meandering path from Salisbury Plain to the sheep farms of South Cadbury, in Somerset County. In the last two days, humans had become prey as well, their grisly remains following the same patterns as those of the missing goats, sheep, and cattle-remnants of desiccated flesh and bone found in a trail of corrosive slime that ended at the edges of rivers, ponds, and lakes.

Given the timing, Stephen had quickly concurred with Alisha that the beginning of the disappearances and mutilations coincided with a series of earthquake-like events that had plagued the countryside surrounding Stonehenge. Although the violent seismic activity had _seemed _to emanate from the very center of the ancient stone circle-with onsite tour guides and tourists alike describing quakes that had _felt _to them like at least a magnitude six on the Richter scale-there was no physical or scientific evidence to explain the disturbances. Not a stone had been toppled, let alone even minutely displaced, while none of the British Geological Survey centers could begin to offer a scientific explanation, for their instruments showed no quakes, no shakes, and not even a vague tremor at the time of the occurrences. Meaning the cause had to be beyond the understanding of human science.

Fascinated by the mysterious details-and ever ready to provide protection for the unknowing, vulnerable people in the creature's vicinity-Stephen had promised Banerjee to do his utmost to find both the cause of the danger, and a solution. He decided his best resource to begin with, would be the text and scrolls that contained millennia of collected knowledge of the countless generations of sorcerers that came before him.

* * *

Stephen and Wong stood at the library entrance, as Stephen contemplated which sources might shed some light on the dire mystery facing him. Cloak had flown off, knowing full well that it's Master would be immersed in some intense research for at least the next few hours. "But where to begin," Stephen had muttered, hands on hips as his eyes raked across the rows and rows of books. He turned to Wong, "Any suggestions?"

Wong considered the question for a moment. "Well, it might help if you told me everything we know about the creature so far."

"Right." Luckily, Stephen's memory was exceptional, so that he was easily able to recall what he'd been told about the beast. "No one has been close enough to it to get more than an impression-fortunately for them, or they might have made a handy snack for it. Unfortunately for us, because the descriptions sounds…pretty outrageous."

"How?"

"As seen from a safe distance, the consensus seems to be a serpent's head and neck on the body of some huge, big cat, like a leopard or a lion. Some witnesses claimed it was spotted, so I suppose that's explains the comparison to a leopard." Stephen chewed his lip, trying to picture such an odd combination in his mind's eye, "One of them said the neck scales gave away gradually to fur. But instead of the paws of a big cat, it had hooves. And a long, thick tail with several nasty looking spikes near the end of it."

Wong looked skeptical, "Sounds like somebody's bad dream after a trip to the zoo."

"More like somebody's acid trip _about_ the zoo," Stephen suggested with a grin-though Wong didn't even crack a smile.

"And it leaves a trail of slime…like a snail?

"Slime yes," Stephen confirmed, "Though snail slime is most often produced to facilitate better locomotion. I think with this creature, that it is more likely digestive juices from whatever it's consumed. The stuff seems to eat through flesh and bone pretty quickly, unless it's hit with full sunlight; otherwise, it just evaporates in strong daylight. But most of the sightings have been around dusk, so maybe the creature shies away from the light. Hmmmm…"

"I know that '_hmmmm_', Stephen," Wong interrupted, "It means you've got a hunch about something"

"Yeah…maybe…could be…yeah, there _was_ something more." He turned to the Master Librarian, "Do we have any books here about really odd lifeforms? Like native _and_ other worldly?"

"We've got a few basic texts, but the bulk of that material will be at the library in Kamar-Taj," Wong told him. "Why-what are you thinking?"

"A couple of the witnesses whose livestock were taken told Master Banerjee that the creature made a god awful noise. So bad that they thought their eardrums might rupture." Stephen was not so much as discussing this new information as thinking aloud, mulling it over, and looking for a clue that was just out of his reach. "And one of them _did_ start bleeding from one ear…"

Wong knew his job now was to stoke Stephen's intellect and draw the answer from his prodigious mind, "So this is something familiar to you?"

"Wellllll," Stephen hedged, "It's something vaguely familiar. A beast out of Arthurian legend. It was like an…unholy amalgamation of different animals. The…" Stephen closed his eyes again, reaching for that distant memory from his childhood, "…damn…I haven't thought of it for decades, for Vishanti's sake…" He looked back to Wong, grinning, "I'll be damned…it was described in Mallory's _Le Morte d'Arthur_, and over and over again through the ages since, by whomever took up the tale. The Questing Beast…"

Wide-eyed, Wong watched his friend, while finally breaking into the smallest smile he could manage, knowing that Stephen had gotten the answer he needed.

"…I read about it in a book series called _The Once and Future King _when I was just a kid…there was this old knight named Pellinore whose sole mission in life was to hunt the beast down. He described the sound it made as…," Stephen turned his head slightly, as though he was hearing the actual sound himself, "…'_like thirty couple hounds a-questing'_…basically outrageously loud, like it's belly was filled with a huge pack of vicious hunting dogs zeroing in on their prey…"

"And that's what the witnesses in England described?"

"Kinda like, yeah. The farmers whose livestock were taken, said they were alerted that something was wrong by the noise. One of them described it as being like a rabid pack of dogs on steroids." Stephen sighed, reflecting on the impossibility of his sudden insight holding the answers he sought, "Of course, those tales are pure fantasy, based on Roman legends and Celtic myths. The Questing Beast was never real, just like Arthur and Merlin never really existed." He shrugged, preparing to dismiss his flight of fancy, "They're really just composite characters, Wong. Shrouded in folklore, and no more than fables and fairytales."

Though he moved towards the book stacks, resolute to find any sort of realistic clue to solving Master Banerjee's deadly dilemma, Wong was quick to stop his brilliant friend. "Hold on a moment, Stephen," he counseled him, "That assumption isn't entirely accurate…"

"Right," Stephen scoffed, "And I suppose you're going to tell me Camelot was real and someday, when England needs him the most, Arthur will return to wield Excalibur again, and set to right all that has been wronged."

"Actually," the librarian and fellow Master of the Mystics Arts informed him, enjoying a rare opportunity to leave his friend speechless, "Merlin was entirely real…and he served as Master of the London Sanctum in those days. It was known as Londinium then—but yes, Merlin was a sorcerer trained in Kamar-Taj."

Agog, Stephen regarded Wong with a mix of skepticism and surprise clouding his brow. "You can't be serious, Wong…this is a joke, right?"

Wong smirked and shook his head, "You should know by now I wouldn't make light about such a matter, Stephen. But if you need proof, there are several volumes that are part of The Ancient One's private collection-it was a time period she was most interested in, and she prided herself on having one of the few surviving copies left of _A Complete History of the Mystic Arts in the_ _British Isles_, as dictated by Merlin to his apprentice. I've seen it myself…and Merlin himself penned some of the entries."

"Why am I only finding out about this now," Stephen exclaimed.

"It's one of her more esoteric texts," Wong explained, "I figured you'd get to it when you get to it."

"Now would be best, Wong, don't you think? The sooner, the better, in fact." The eager gleam in his eyes

Wong turned on his heel, and jogged back down the hall to the staircase, calling back as he went, "Just give me ten minutes. Ten minutes, and I'll have the books sitting on the desk in your study."

Stephen rubbed his hands together, a delightful combination of curiosity and anticipation causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. Until just now, he had forgotten the happy hours he'd spent, reading about and imaging what life colored by the magic of a Merlin could be like. That he was now living such a life was not lost upon him-and that a Merlin had _actually_ existed, doing the same work that he was doing himself every day, was a thrill of knowledge he _never_ would have dreamed. _Regardless if these books_ _give me some answer to Banerjee's problem or not_, he thought, _this is one adventure I'm thrilled to be a part of._


End file.
